The idea behind this post has been swirling around my head for the past week or two. Really, for anyone who’s followed this blog, or my posts on Facebook before shuttering my account a year ago, this line of thought has been lurking in the corners of my brain for several years. An article published yesterday, about the 1994 book ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’ by Sven Birkerts, seemed like a good impetus to collect and record my thoughts.

I first encountered Sven Birkerts in early 1995, on a volume of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (which at that time was called the ‘Mars Hill Tapes’, as it was published bi-monthly in cassette format back then). His book was written and published in the early days of home computers and online access, when services such as Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL were the primary conduits of online information for most people. Birkerts, a literature critic and college instructor, noted at that time the increasing difficulty his students were having with reading long-form books. In addition to lacking the focus necessary to engage this format, he also noted in his students the increasing lack of desire to enter into the worlds of other places and times, and to engage empathically with those people, whether historical or fictional. In addition to fostering understanding and empathy, Birkerts argues that long-form reading (or “reading deeply”, the term used in the article linked above) also serves the purposes of both developing deeper knowledge, and of understanding of how different ideas, concepts, and meanings fit together.

Even back in 1994, before the modern world wide web, Birkerts saw the ways in which easy access to huge amounts of data was starting to affect the areas of knowledge and learning. Modern search engines allow us to flit across the surface of vast quantities of information to quickly find a bit of information we’re looking for. There is, undoubtedly, great utility in this. But having that capability has also done two things:

1. it has allowed our focus on the “what?” to very often short-circuit the bigger questions of “how?” and “why?”
2. it has helped us grow accustomed to short, informational soundbytes, and become less inclined to read anything of length

These trends were already in full force with computer monitors as our information mediating devices. With the ubiquitous adoption of smartphones, such trends have accelerated at light speed.

And it’s not particularly hard to understand why. First, with an increasing percentage of people using their phones as their primary information access device, information providers are formatting and packaging their information in smaller, shorter, bite-sized summaries. Second, with smartphone screens being only a few inches high, we’ve become accustomed to that “page” size, and after a while any article longer than a screen or two starts to seem “long” to us – even though an average smartphone “page” only contains 1/2 to 3/4 the number of words of an average paperback page.

The result is that over time, we lose the desire, and eventually the ability, to read and understand anything longer than a few paragraphs. (Even though I intentionally don’t use my phone as a smartphone, I’ve noticed this trend in myself, and I find it troubling. I’m also intentionally trying to combat it.) We lose the ability to think deeply about things, to see different perspectives, to ponder, to reflect, and are left with only the ability to emote, increasingly fueled by our passions but based largely on our ignorance.

It’s up to each of us to take any and all steps to stop, and reverse, this trend in our own lives. But I can think of a few places to start:

• Walk away from social media. Its truncated information delivery system is designed to elicit reaction rather than contemplation, and generates more heat than light. We need more light and less heat.
• Remove all the apps from your phone. Seriously. Use it for calling and messaging.
• Buy a book – an actual book, not an electronically mediated book – then set aside a regular time to quiet yourself and read it. That will require some deliberate choices… leaving your electronic devices in the other room, choosing not to watch your 9th football game of the week, etc. Choosing the deep is going to – by definition – involve rejecting the shallow. Choose a book that will make you think, and/or that will inspire you to become a better person, and/or that will bring you closer to your Creator. (One possibility that meets all 3 of those is to read your Bible. Any of the gospels, or the book of Romans, would be a good choice.) Highlight or underline meaningful passages as you read. Journal or blog about what you’re learning – it will help you to synthesize and solidify your thoughts. When you finish that book, rinse and repeat.

Making these kinds of deliberate choices can help all of us to be deeper people. Christians, especially, should be people of the Word. And out of those depths we can more regularly be a source of light, rather than contributing to the heat.